EvacuAir

It’s the middle of the night. You are fast asleep. Suddenly the piercing sound of the smoke detector jolts you awake. It’s a race against time to get outside to safety.

According to Robert Stewart, president of EvacuAir Inc., the problem most people face in a house fire is that they don’t realize that what they might inhale could prove more deadly than the fire itself.

“It’s not the wood burning that gets you,” he says. “It’s the vinyl and the paint on your walls—the stuff that gives off toxic fumes and poisonous gas. There are 21 known carcinogens in a house fire. A fire extinguisher and a smoke detector are good for homes but if you wake up in the middle of the night and your house is on fire, they’re not going to help get you outside.”

Stewart understands all too well how quickly a person can be overtaken by toxic smoke. Several years ago, he and his wife Kim lost some good friends, including their first child’s babysitter, in a house fire.

“Her hand was actually on the back door,” recalls Stewart. “All of them died of smoke inhalation.”

Soon after the tragedy his wife, who was then pregnant with their second child, asked him to buy something that could help their family improve their chances of escaping the deadly fumes of a house fire. He searched on the Internet and in safety stores and was surprised to discover no such product existed, at least not an affordable one.

“We went to fire safety stores and they had things that cost over a hundred dollars,” he says, and those were really complicated and cumbersome. “The unit that we have invented can be operated by a child. It’s affordable, very safe, and easy to use. You can put it in your nightstand, mount it to your bedpost, or put it on your wall—it all folds up really small.”

What Stewart has come up with is the EvacuAir emergency breathing apparatus, a unique safety product that allows people to breathe while escaping environments filled with toxic smoke or gas. The inspiration came in part from a rescue diving course he had taken.

“I knew you needed air to get out. I thought of storing my scuba diving tanks by the bed and getting out that way. Then I realized that not everyone can do that.”

Stewart took his original scuba gear idea and modified it until he had created a small affordable system that anyone could use. He’s spent the last four years developing, patenting, manufacturing, and preparing to market the EvacuAir device across Canada.

To use it, a person inserts a snorkel-like mouthpiece and pulls a cord that pierces a pressurized oxygen tank, which fills a bag in front of their chest. When they breathe in, they inhale from the front bag; when they exhale, it goes through a series of flutter valves into a second bag in the back. When the front bag is empty, the back bag is full.

“Your body only takes in anywhere from five to eight per cent oxygen and the rest gets expelled,” Stewart explains. “So with a lever, you can switch and re-breathe from the back bag into the front bag and do that over and over again for well over a minute.”

Once Stewart came up with his initial design, he took the idea to others to see if it was viable. Everyone who heard his concept encouraged him to keep moving forward.

“I don’t know how you could get any more innovative than what we’ve done,” he reflects. “There was absolutely nothing out there like this and we had to start from scratch.”

When he reached the point where he had to raise money, he decided to sell part of the company that was to be incorporated. He planned to sell 13 shares and, to his surprise, the first 13 people that he asked bought them. Besides those initial local investors, EvacuAir also received support from InNOVAcorp, a Nova Scotia organization that helps high potential, early stage companies market their new technologies by offering hands-on business guidance, mentoring, and financial investment. In 2007, Stewart entered EvacuAir in InNOVAcorp’s I-3 Technology Start-Up Competition and placed second in his provincial zone, earning a $40,000 prize ($25,000 cash and $15,000 of in-kind business building services).

As a result of all of that strong support, EvacuAir now has about 10,000 units assembled and ready to sell. The majority of parts are manufactured in Nova Scotia and the units are assembled here too, at a facility in Debert near his home in central Nova Scotia. Stewart is happy to have production take place so close to home, as he still works as a welder in Brookfield and as a beef farmer in Old Barns and loves living here.

“I’ve travelled quite a bit of Canada and nothing competes with Nova Scotia, whether it’s the lifestyle or the good neighbours,” he says. “Trust is a big thing in Nova Scotia. I could leave my kids with any of my neighbours or call on those neighbours if I needed anything.”

The device has been available for purchase via the company’s website for a little while now and Stewart is ready to get it into safety retail outlets across the country at a price where the average family can afford it, roughly around $50.

“My long-term goal would be to have it become mandatory for homes, the same as a smoke detector,” he says. “In the majority of stories that the fire department will tell you, they find a lot of people halfway from their bed to the backdoor.”
 

Feature story by Tara Lee Wittchen